Riddle me This
by impossibleorimprobable
Summary: They're waiting for a train. A train that will take them far away. They don't know where it will take them but it doesn't matter. How can it not matter? Because they're dreaming and they aren't sure they want to wake up anymore. The line between sleeping and waking is blurry. A dream is the only place they can be together. [KA, SR, HK, Inception AU]


**A/N: so somewhere down the line I decided that bc MK has heists and Inception has heists, I must combine the two universes and then make Kaito a thief of DREAMS. And then Shinichi pushed his way to the front and yelled at me for not paying attention to him and two days later, voila~ This'll be a twoshot? Might be a three-shot. Idek yet lol**

* * *

Years and years down the line, Aoko Nakamori expects the universe to give her a normal life. She figures she deserves the peace.

(Spoilers. She doesn't get it.)

She doesn't expect anything out of the ordinary when her college professor keeps her after class, though she is understandably nervous. Jodie-sensei is notoriously strict. Her grip is so tight around her pencil her fingers turn white, and she chews her lip, already wondering what she did wrong.

Aoko watches as her classmates burst into life around her, hoisting their bags over their shoulder and clapping her back or whispering quiet words of sympathy as they make their escape. She holds her breath when the room is finally empty and Jodie-sensei makes her way up the stairs of the lecture hall.

The apology is already halfway out of her mouth when Jodie-sensei smiles and says, "I have a job offer for you."

Aoko's brows scrunch together and she gapes, for a moment, like a fish. While it's true she works harder than anyone in the three years she's been here, if only to force herself to forget, she isn't even close to graduation yet. Not only that, but architecture is something she's playing with, something she decides that perhaps she likes, something that she wants to try because somewhere along the way she decides she doesn't have to be limited to the police work her father does, that she can be free from all the conflicts and emotions of a life spent chasing criminals. If anything, for her, this is a breath of fresh air, a new start. She hasn't spent her whole life wanting this.

Who would want to hire her? There are plenty more experienced students, let alone adults, who have also been dedicated to the subject since childhood.

She swallows, and tries her best to sound intelligent, "Uh...Like, a work placement?"

"Not exactly," A smooth baritone comes from behind her.

The French itself is impeccable. But the accent is very much Japanese.

She tries to turn.

"Don't," says the same voice.

"...Okay," Aoko crosses her arms, slumping in her seat. Curiouser and curiouser. "Exactly why can't I turn around?"

"Due to certain circumstances, you can't see me until you accept this job. And you can't accept it unless you can do it."

She huffs. "Why?" A pause. She chews her lip, suddenly nervous. Something was familiar about this voice, something in the way he spoke perhaps, all lightness, that reminded her of a certain..."This job…" She swallows the sudden panic that swells in her chest. "it's not...illegal, is it?"

"You'll see." The voice sounds amused.

She flushes, feeling a little stupid. _Sure, Aoko. As if anything like that would require the skill of an architect._

Jodie-sensei sets a notepad down in front of her, and an uncapped pen. She looks up questioningly, but the American professor just smiles, pulling her phone out from her pocket. "You have two minutes to design a maze that takes a minute to solve. Time starts now."

Aoko scrambles to grab the pen.

When her two minutes are up, she has a reasonably complicated maze constructed. Her gaze follows Jodie-sensei mas she walks up the stairs of the lecture hall. The sound of rustling paper, and then a pen scribbling on a notepad.

"Nope. You'll have to do better than that." Almost immediately, the faceless man speaks again.

Her mouth falls open because that has to be impossible. "How did you-?"

But then the timer starts and she lunges forward.

He solves it in under ten seconds this time.

"Try again," he suggests, and something in the tone of his voice irritates her..

Jodie-sensei starts the timer. Aoko sits still, staring, face red. And then she draws.

 _Take that._

There is silence this time.

"Good," he says softly. She can hear the hint of a smile. "Forgive me. I'm looking for someone to design complicated mazes that should be impossible to solve in theory."

"Well, I can most definitely do it." She crosses her arms.

"You can turn around now."

Aoko does.

"Kudou Shinichi," even dressed in a crisp suit, he cannot have been more than a year older than her. But that's beside the point. She's heard of him before. In fact she remembers the newspaper her father had been reading that morning, years ago, remembers the long sigh he'd heaved when he reached the page with the headline and pronounced what a shame it was.

Kudou Shinichi is supposed to be dead.

She stares. _Not only that,_ her mind is traitorous, _but he also looks just like..._

Aoko pushes that thought away. And then: "Nakamori Aoko," she takes his outstretched hand and shakes, suddenly very, very curious. "Now what's that about a job offer?"

It explains the speed with which he was able to solve the mazes at least. But what use has a ghost for an architect?

* * *

"So why did you hire me?" She stares as the man downs his fifth cup of coffee, idly wondering how he hasn't gotten caffeine poisoning yet. It's a little strange how familiar it is to be talking to someone about police work again, how easy it is to slip back into the shadows of that life. It's a side effect of the way she's grown up, she supposes.

"Someone recommended you," is all Kudou-kun says, "that, and I knew Nakamori-keibu before my 'death.' Of course, I had to be sure you were actually competent. Jodie-sensei is my contact on that front. She's very impressed with your abilities."

The open air cafe is a nice change from the lecture hall, and he warns her that she'll need a cup of tea after he finishes explaining. And boy, is it a story. Almost like something out of the novels she used to read.

She hasn't liked mysteries in a long time. Mysteries are just that: too many secrets.

 _Familiar faces hidden behind brilliant disguises. Betrayed by someone trusted._

This one is no different.

"So, let me get this straight," She says, when he's done, "Five years ago, you discovered a crime syndicate, which turned you into a seven year old. A year ago, you faked your death to go undercover to bring down said crime syndicate, somehow got your body back, and now you've got a definitive lead...because you're going to...plant an idea...in one of the member's heads."

"You've basically got it," Kudou says cheerily. "Be proud of yourself. Most people don't take this well."

Well, most people haven't lived the life that Aoko has. Most people haven't spent the entirety of their life chasing an elusive phantom thief. Most people haven't found out who he actually is. She doubts anything could faze her. Nothing has, since she left Japan.

Aoko opens and then closes her mouth like a fish. "Why exactly are we discussing this, a matter of _international_ security, in an open air cafe, where anyone can hear us?"

"Oh, we're not," Kudou fiddles with the handle of his coffee mug.

Aoko's floored. "What?"

Has the man officially gone off his rocker?

"Think about it, Aoko. Where are we?"

"...An open air cafe?"

Kudou sighed. "How did you get here?"

"Don't be stupid," Aoko frowns, wondering if maybe the years Kudou spent as a first grader has somehow messed up his memory, "We just came from the…"

Her mind is completely blank.

"Uh...we came from the…"

Is it the lecture hall? But how do they get here? Walking? Cab? She doesn't remember. The edges are black and fuzzy.

She narrows her eyes.

Kudou grins. "Do you ever remember how you get to a dream, Aoko-san?"

They're standing in the middle of the street now, at least ten feet away from the table.

Aoko blinks. "...No?"

The universe around her is like it always has been. But how is any of this possible? If, for a moment, she believes him, and this is a dream, then how has all of this been created? How, _exactly_ , has she gotten here?

"That's where you come in," Kudou says, like he's read her mind. "That's why I need you on the job. To create. To build this world."

Still not sure she quite believes what he's telling her, she turns around. "I can do that?"

There is a mysterious smile on his face. "Try it."

Aoko does. The city folds on top of itself when she wills it and she thinks her eyes are visibly sparkling.

* * *

"So is it really this easy?" She asks.

The city creating itself to her specifications in the background seems to think so.

"I suppose," Kudou says with the air of a tourist, gaze roaming appreciatively over the cityscape. "This is pretty good."

"Thanks."

"But if you keep changing things, my subconscious is going to notice."

"What?"

"We're in my mind, didn't you know?"

"You kind of neglected to mention that," Aoko crosses her arms, because really, how can someone remember to mention that he spent a year as a seven year old and not something as trivial as the fact that they were currently taking a stroll through his head?

"Well, we are," Kudou says, tucking one hand into his pocket with an air of almost amusement.

Aoko doesn't let herself think how much that makes him look like…

"And if you keep changing things, all of these lovely citizens are going to take notice," he waves his hand around lazily. "In fact, they'll probably notice quicker than the average subconscious. My premonitions are generally on the money. Call it a detective's instinct."

"Well, I can't exactly stop. There are so many things to try-to build-this is _pure creation."_ A pause, and then she adds, a little worried, "What exactly happens when they do notice?"

"You'll find out."

She's too busy raising Tokyo Tower out of the skyline to bother sniping back at him.

It's been awhile since she's been home. She grins at familiar streets, at cars on a specific side of the road, at street signs she has no trouble recognizing. It's almost nice, in a sense, to be able to stand here, to create this from memory, to look at the masses of people who are not actually people.

Aoko can feel the sweltering heat as she brushes past figments of Kudou's imagination. She enjoys the crowd, enjoys Japanese summer breezes sweeping past her cheek.

"I know this place," there is urgency in his voice the next time Kudou speaks.

They've wandered to a nice crowded little plaza in front of a tall structure. Unwittingly, she looks up.

Beika Central Building.

She doesn't know why she's put it here. Perhaps it is because Keiko had always been dragging her to that place, whether it be the movie theater on the first floor, or the little shops on the other floors. Aoko will never understand Keiko's obsession with shopping in other cities, but when this pseudo-Japan is blossoming under her direction, she has thought of her long time friend.

"What about it?" she asks, turns to regard Kudou.

He's gone paler than the ghost he should have been.

"Kudou-kun?"

His head is tilted back. He's looking at something in the sky-the glittering top of the skyscraper, perhaps? "You can't create from memory," his voice chokes and catches. "Never create from memory."

"You didn't seem to be complaining when I was doing all of that." She sweeps a hand toward the landscape behind them, nonchalantly steps forward.

"No, because you weren't recreating exactly. Details were off, placement of buildings." His blue-eyed gaze meets her own. There is urgency in it and his grip is iron when he tugs her back. "Creating exactly from memory is the quickest way to lose grasp on what is real."

Aoko raises an eyebrow at the physically shaken man. Tentatively, because she doesn't want to know, not really, she asks. "Is that what happened to you?"

He doesn't answer.

"Kudou-kun?"

Only then does she realize that he is not looking at her anymore. Instead, his gaze is fixated on something behind her, and a strange gleam was in his eye.

Sick to her stomach, Aoko turns.

A woman in red wanders slowly, deliberately, toward them. There's something tragically beautiful about the way her dark tresses spill over bare, bony shoulders, and a faint rose flush dusted her cheeks. Aoko would have sworn that she's a heroine from some long forgotten fairytale if not for the inhuman violet vibrancy of her eyes, and the bullet hole, oh yes, the bullet hole. Blood still gushes from her abdomen, running in rivulets down the length of her satin skirt, and yet she walks, steady as ever.

Around them, the sound of the city fades away. Aoko doesn't move, spellbound.

"Ran, don't-" behind her, Kudou-kun inhales sharply.

The woman leans down slowly to retrieve something strapped to her leg.

"Ran, _please-"_

" _Do you know what it is to be a lover?_ " The woman's voice is soft, melodic almost, jarring, in the busy street.

Aoko realizes that she's not talking to Kudou. The violet-eyed gaze settles on her face and her face only.

The question hangs in the air.

Her voice is stuck in her throat. She swallows down the lump as the scenery around them ripples. Her mind is flying to that _something_ in the past and the world around her obeys, misunderstands the firing of her synapses, misunderstands her directions.

 _No no no. Not like this._ She doesn't want to remember yet. Not like this.

 _"To be half of a whole?"_

Something behind her chimes, like a big old clock mounted on a big old clock tower, like an afternoon so many years ago-

 _Two children stand next to each other on stone steps, backs toward Aoko._

 _"Why are you here all alone?" the boy asks, moving closer._

 _"My father promised he would come pick me up, but he's running late."_

 _"My name is Kuroba Kaito. Nice to meet you."_

 _A rose blossoming out of thin air._

 _The girl giggles._

 _"_ Don't, _please,_ " she finds herself saying.

The woman is in front of her now. A trail of blood is on the pavement. Something digs into Aoko's chest, and the woman smiles.

She realizes too late it's the muzzle of a gun.

Pain explodes in her ribcage and then she starts awake, gasping for air, fighting, writhing. Someone's hand closes around her wrist and she nearly slaps him before she realizes she's staring into a familiar face.

It takes her a few seconds.

Hattori Heiji. Kudou's friend. The loud dark-skinned point man from Osaka.

Aoko isn't in Japan. She is sitting in an abandoned warehouse in Paris. She's accepted the job offer of some apparently very psychologically damaged legally dead detectives in a bid to save Japan from the clutches of an evil crime syndicate.

It doesn't exactly help to ground oneself with a reality that seems as ridiculous as dreams, does it? Normal girls don't grow up at heists, normal girls don't stay up half the night waiting, hoping, praying for their father to come home, normal girls don't fall in love with best friends who-

She heaves one breath, two, hands shaking, voice shaking, feeling like the earth beneath her feet is actually spinning, just a little bit green. Don't focus on _that_. Focus on something else. Some part else. "Shit. She shot me. _She shot me."_

"It's ok," Hattori says, a little awkwardly. Aoko glares up at him, gets the feeling he's not used to being comforting. "That's supposed to happen. When the subconscious senses someone messing with them, they converge. You have to die to wake up."

Behind her, Kudou gets to his feet, looking harried as he escapes the room, running a hand through his bird's nest of hair.

"That's some subconscious you've got on you!" Anger swells in her, and humiliation, humiliation that after such a long time, after everything that _he's_ done to her she still can't just _forget..._ "She's a real _charmer."_

Beside her, Hattori goes still, very, very still.

"...The woman. Was she wearing a red dress?"

"What?" Aoko raises an eyebrow.

"Answer the question."

"...Yes. Why? Who is she?"

"...His fiancee. Shit."

Hattori runs after Kudou, leaving Aoko to sit in a lawn chair in the middle of an abandoned warehouse, wondering what the hell is going on.

* * *

If she leaves, neither of them would know. Aoko can go now. Walk out of this life again, like she did all those years ago.

But she stays, rooted to the chair.

The chime of the clock tower is still echoing in her mind, flashes of violet, and then lapis lazuli blue behind her eyelids. It's all coming back again, everything she's worked to put behind.

 _Goddammit._

Kudou and Hattori reappear. The former doesn't manage to look her straight in the eye when he comes back. That's ok, because her fingers don't quite manage to stop shaking either.

"Come on," Hattori tries to sound normal, hesitantly helps her get to her feet. "We should get you a totem."

There are two questions she wants to ask. The more urgent one wins. "Who is she?"

Neither needs another clarification to know who she's asking about. "It's not my story to tell," Hattori Heiji says, and side-eyes Kudou.

Aoko grits her teeth and tells him that she has a right to know if she's going to be sharing dreams with that man-she has a right to know what she's up against, what they're all up against. If what Kudou Shinichi is hiding behind haunted, hollow eyes has the potential to get them all killed then she has a right.

And he of all people should know exactly how much damage keeping a secret like that can do.

"...If I explain, will you help us?"

Aoko considers. And then answers the affirmative, because she has a strong suspicion that this case, this mission, whatever it is, is the thing that is tearing Kudou Shinichi to shreds.

When Kudou finally speaks again, he tells her about a girl named Mouri Ran.

He tells her about becoming himself again, after a year spent as Edogawa Conan. He tells her about a restaurant at the top of Beika Central Building, where his parents had gotten engaged. He tells her about a firefight gone wrong, tells her about the snakes hidden in the dark, tells her about how the bullet in Mouri Ran's abdomen is meant for him.

Some part of Aoko wonders why, when he's finished, he turns and goes without another word. Some part of Aoko wonders why he doesn't ask her about the clock tower, or the ghostly echo of children standing facing the other direction.

But she's too relieved he doesn't to wonder any more.

* * *

She's brought to a separate room to get her totem.

Hattori explains that the totem has to be something only she knows about, something only she can touch, something she can memorizes as a constant of her reality. For example, his is an omamori, worn under his clothes at all times.

A serious girl in a lab coat, looking no more than twelve years old, brings her to the work station.

"You have to build something," the girl says mildly, unaffectedly, as she turns to continue her work. "Something special to you. Something that tells you this reality is real."

Aoko spies test tubes and beakers filled with oddly colored liquid, spies the girl pouring and mixing these chemicals with grace impossible for a twelve year old.

This must then be Haibara Ai. Creator of APTX-4869. Its victim as well. What kind of life has this girl led? If something so hectic has happened to her-something almost out of the pages of a novel, a sci-fi thriller, then what is the thing that grounds her in reality?

Aoko suddenly wonders. "What is your totem?"

A mysterious smile graces Haibara's face. She holds something small, glittering, what seems to be a child's badge up to the light. "And what it does is my business."

Aoko, embarrassed, turns around and stops asking, and instead wracks her brain for something she can use. What is the one thing in her life that is a constant?

Certainly not her father. Before she might have answered, Kaito. But certainly not Kaito either, now that everything has fallen into place the way it has. Funnily enough, the one thing that is constantly there, has been there since before she could remember is…

Aoko smiles, all too sadly, and gets to work carving wood and glass.

* * *

Weeks pass without her notice.

A man who used to work for the FBI-Akai Shuichi-arrives. He is overseeing this entire endeavor, and will be going into the dream with them, if only to make sure everything goes according to plan. Yet another ghost to work with. Aoko steers clear of him, hides out with Haibara in the lab. The chemist tells her that this is the last batch of people coming in. One more person, one more team member will arrive, and then the work will officially begin.

They do workshop dreams almost every day to train Aoko before the final member of their team arrives and teach her how to best design dream levels. She takes care to avoid anything that might remind Kudou of Beika. His projection of Ran doesn't appear anymore. At least, not in the dreams that she shares with them.

On one such occasion, however, Hattori Heiji nearly jumps out of his skin when a slender girl emerges out of nowhere and taps him on the shoulder. Her dark hair is gathered in a high ponytail by a dark green ribbon, and she looks distinctly displeased.

"Kazuha-What are you doing here, ahou?!"

"You're the ahou!" The girl mimics Hattori's voice perfectly. Aoko has to double take. Perhaps this girl then, is their missing final member? Haibara has told her that the one they're waiting on is the forger, one that can take the appearance of and pretend to be anyone in a dream.

Hattori blinks, once, twice, and then growls. "That's not funny, Kuroba."

Her breath catches in her throat as the mirage melts away and suddenly _he's_ standing there, the familiar face emerging in front of her. A face she hasn't seen since high school, a face she hasn't seen for five years. A face she wants to forget and hold on to all at the same time.

Aoko's hand is tucked into her pocket, and her fingers close around her totem tight. Something in her chest hurts.

He might be smiling that _damn smile,_ something like hope, something like warmth in his eyes, when he walks over to her. "Hi."

Aoko takes several deep breaths, squeezes her eyes shut, and turns to Kudou, careful to keep her voice completely still and without any emotion. "When you said someone recommended me-"

"Kuroba Kaito," Kudou says, as if he doesn't know, as if he's just introducing them for the very first time. "Nakamori Aoko."

And she suddenly understands why he didn't ask the first time.

Aoko lets out something that might be half a laugh and half a sob and turns on her heel.

* * *

She manages to deal with it, because Aoko is very good at dealing. The plans are drawn up and discussed. Their target is a higher-up of the organization, a vicious man with long, blonde hair, code-named Gin. Incepting an idea into his head would be hard, of course-especially an idea that would force him to take down his own organization from the inside-but it is a necessary risk if they want to be rid of the syndicate once and for all.

Meetings are awkward as all hell, because she refuses to meet his eye and it's like Kaito can't keep his gaze from straying toward her. Every once in awhile she'd feel his gaze wander toward her side of the room.

(A small part of her wants to meet that gaze-wants to stare into his eyes again-)

Every time, her fingers clench momentarily around her totem, and she looks away.

Three levels. Haibara has to design chemicals that will keep them all asleep stably enough to go under three times. Aoko has to design mazes cleverly disguised as intricate cities. Kudou, Hattori and Kaito work on how to infiltrate a hardened criminal's mind, all the tricks they can utilize to implant an idea, all the ideas they can implant to make sure the organization goes down and stays down.

Their conclusion, drawn after Akai makes his contribution to the discussion: make Gin doubt the loyalty of every organization member. Heaven knows he's trigger happy enough.

Which is brilliant, on principle, and really straight forward a concept.

The execution, Aoko thinks, is the thing that ought to be tricky.

"Don't let Kudou-kun see the schematics," Haibara warns her one day, after the meeting.

She raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

"If he knows it, then Ran-san knows it."

It clicks. "Ah."

"And Aoko-san?"

"Huh?"

"Whatever your deal with Kuroba-kun is-deal with it. This job is risky enough with Kudou's head in the wrong place. I'd hate to have to deal with _another_ shade."


End file.
